


Fatherhood (If You Ever Did Believe Remix)

by poisontaster



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Breeding, F/M, Fertility Issues, Gen, Remix, Remix Redux
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-02
Updated: 2006-04-02
Packaged: 2018-02-14 13:34:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2193678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>How do you want your contribution to be handled?</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fatherhood (If You Ever Did Believe Remix)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MeyerLemon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeyerLemon/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Fatherhood](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/69552) by Meyerlemon. 



> Written for the 2006 Remix Redux.

Galen can tell that Roslin must have invented the forms, worlds away from the terse language of the Fleet:

_Thank you for your contribution of genetic material. This important duty is not one that is undertaken lightly and that you do this now, for the sake of all humanity, is a service we will never be able to completely repay._

When he’d thought of children—because they’d both wanted them—it was always with Sharon; dark haired and with her liquid sloe eyes, her laugh, her smile, and maybe—just maybe—hands like his, clever and stained with grease.

He fills out the medical history to the best of his ability. The genetic lines of oracles and priests are muddy, complicated by the rites required of them, for fertility, for the raising and laying of the new year. He’s reasonably sure of his own parents, but after that, it’s a little hairy and he always feels a smoldery sort of annoyance every time he has to do this again.

_In these uncertain times, it becomes more vital than ever to ensure the future of our species and it is only with your help that this becomes possible. However, this is a decision of great emotional import and thus, all measures will be taken to respect your level of comfort. These are new waters for us all, and change can be unsettling. If you haven’t already, you may want to take the opportunity to speak to your priests or confessors; the wisdom of the gods is available to all and can provide great solace._

He hasn’t spoken to anyone, not even the gods. He requisitioned the forms from Cottle not long after the rounds of mandatory fertility testing, but he’d shoved them under his mattress right after and avoided even thinking about them for weeks. It seemed…to much to ask. At least until he got the printout from Medical, the word **VIABLE** stamped across it in smeary red ink.

Really, no one’s talking about it. Which means everyone is, but indirectly. It’s all…scuttlebutt. He knows Lee’s volunteered, because Kara announced it in front of gods and everybody in the breakroom, tankard held high and slopping over the rim. He knows Cally’s all frakked up from the bullet she took on the _Astral Queen_ and now she’ll never have kids. He knows Felix Gaeta is thinking about it—and gods save the woman that gets _his_ uptight babies—because he and Dee had a vicious hissing argument about it in one of the back corridors as he was passing by, culminating in a frustrated, “I don’t know why you even _frakking_ care!” from Gaeta and a frigid, “I _don’t_!” from Dee. When Hardball made some joke to Racetrack about a passel of kids hanging off her flight suit, she turned around and clocked him one, breaking his nose and cheekbone and earning herself a week’s suspension.

Galen dreams of assembling endless lines of clockwork children and keeps his mouth shut about the topic altogether.

***

“One last questionnaire,” Cottle announces with what Galen suspects is grim satisfaction. Cottle hands him the clipboard and gestures to the cubicle that’s been designated ‘The Wank Bank’ by ship’s wags.

Galen puts paper towels across the cube’s only chair and sits down with the clipboard.

_How do you want your contribution to be handled?_  


  

  1. Held (banked) until time of demise and then disseminated.  

  2. Held (banked) until a later date to be specified by the donor or time of demise, whichever comes first.  

  3. Immediately disseminated to an anonymous surrogate.  

  4. Immediately disseminated to a non-anonymous surrogate.  

  5. Immediately disseminated to a surrogate of your choice.  




There is a brief ache of _Sharon_ that goes through him, faded and mild as he ticks of option three. But surprisingly, his mind throws up the image of Cally, who hadn’t even been sure that she’d _wanted_ children until someone told her she couldn’t. Until someone had taken that away from her. Galen sighs, crosses out, initials the cross-out and ticks off option four.

_Should successful fertilization occur, how much involvement would you prefer? (check all that apply)_  


  

  1. No involvement/contact (total termination of all parental rights and responsibilities).  

  2. Limited involvement/contact, such as pictures and informational messages from the surrogate at intervals to be determined by the parties involved.  

  3. Limited involvement/contact, such as pictures, informational messages, AND some visitation rights.  

  4. Moderate involvement/contact, such as regular visitation and communication.  

  5. Moderate involvement/contact, such as partial custody (not applicable to military personnel; if interested in custodial rights, please see your commanding officer about possible outmuster).  

  6. Full parental custodial rights and contact (not applicable to military personnel; if interested in custodial rights, please see your commanding officer about possible outmuster).



Galen thinks about this one for a long time, stylus tapping out a tuneless rhythm against the clipboard’s edge. Or maybe…maybe thinks isn’t the right word. He looks at the page until the letters stop making sense and listens to the blank spaces of his own mind until he can’t stand it any more. He marks off his choices with a violence that nearly rips through the page. Then he puts the clipboard aside, and unzips his coveralls.

***

“It’s been…it’s been a long time since I prayed, Lords. I know that. But I’m here now, and I just…I hope you’re still there to hear this. This is the life you gave me and I’ve done everything I could with it, but now… I don’t know. I just don’t know. And I don’t know what it is I’m trying to say, but I wanted you to know that I’m trying, Lords. I’m listening again. You know…if you had anything you wanted to say.”

Triplets.

 _Triplets,_ and every one of them the spitting image of him, the spitting image of his father before him. He’d been a twin once, briefly, in the ocean of his mother’s womb, but only he’d survived to breathe the air and walk the earth. And then, later, only he was left period.

 _The circle closes, shrinks, but it always opens again_.

His mother’s words come back to him as he looks at the picture of them—Aaron, Ithacus, and Edam—robust and goggle-eyed as if they can’t quite understand how they find themselves _here_. Galen understands the feeling.

He wasn’t there when they were born, although Commander Adama offered the opportunity to all of them, this strange new crop of ‘genetic contributors’. It had seemed…wrong, the idea of going and hovering outside the door like some sort of hungry vulture, longing after children other than these and a future other than this. Now, tracing one blunt fingertip over the laminated surface and steadfastly _not_ looking for the features of a woman who never really existed, he wonders if that hadn’t been a mistake.

***

Galen sees Lee, coming back from his own pilgrimage to the _Ace of Hearts_ , and catches up to him on his way out of the flight deck. “How was it?” he asks. Lee has always been hard to read, although in entirely different ways than his father. Still, there’s this between them now, an uneasy sense of commiseration and commonality; fathers in name if not in truth.

Lee’s face shifts a little, just a little, around the eyes and the tight drawn bar of his lips and Galen sees him swallow. “I don’t-- I don’t know,” he says finally.

Galen squeezes his shoulder lightly. “It’s a mindfrak, Captain,” he says sympathetically. Really, he’s a little surprised that Lee opted for visitation at all. It shouldn’t, though. Of course Lee did; it’s the right thing to do.

It surprises him too that he feels a little sorry for Lee. He would have thought that, as an older brother, Lee would be more at ease…but maybe that’s the problem. In the oracular House, Galen had been surrounded by children, somebody’s, anybody’s, nobody’s. This really isn’t any different. Then, Galen held them lightly and loved them all, as he does with his deck kids now.

Which may be why he lies when Lee asks him about visiting. “Can’t get the time,” he says, offhandedly, but it’s untrue. He knows them, Aaron, Ithacus and Edam; their weight, their smell, their wiggles and their cries. Aaron is serious, a tiny **v** shaped pucker between his eyebrows when he clings to Galen’s finger and gums the tip. Ithacus is fussy and shy, disliking to be held much at all, but disliking it even more to be left alone. Edam’s laugh is infectious and he’s prone to colds.

He hardly thinks of Sharon anymore, except in absence.

He does, however, understand Lee’s discomfort. Lee doesn’t know how to let go without falling, doesn’t know how to hold something only on the palm of your hand. If his daughter cannot be his, then he feels he’ll never be hers, but this is an untruth as well. Aaron, Ithacus and Edam may not be his sons, but he will always be their father.

He will hold them lightly and love them all, safe in the knowledge that they are not hers.


End file.
